


Undisclosed Desires

by MadameDork



Category: Green Lantern - All Media Types, Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Genre: Complete, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-30
Updated: 2020-02-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:53:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22483666
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameDork/pseuds/MadameDork
Summary: Let imagine Razer’s species mating rituals are similar to the Vulcan Pon Farr. And something or someone... triggers it.  Takes place after the first season finale of Green Lantern: The Animated Series.
Relationships: Aya & Razer (GLTAS), Aya/Razer (GLTAS)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 41





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hello everybody. I wrote this 6 or 7 years ago and uploaded it on Fanfiction.net but at some point it got taken down. I recently discovered it digging through my documents and figured what the heck. I put so much into it might as well give it another chance at life. Hope you enjoy!

He rolled to his side, buried his head in his pillow and tried to go to sleep. Sleep however eluded him. He felt agitated and nervous, anxious, waiting for something to happen. Maybe his new bed was the problem, in the apartment the Green Lantern corps had confined him in since they reached Oa. 

Maybe confined was too harsh a word. For his crimes, he could’ve very well be locked up in a science cell. But for his efforts against the Red Lantern Armada, he received an apartment and the right to go anywhere he wished, as long as he checked in first and reported his daily itinerary. Very generous of the Green Lanterns. 

As if on cue, the door slid open. He heard it but didn’t turn to look at the intruder. The door slid shut and once again his room was shrouded with darkness, a darkness that was slightly miffed at the faint green hue of an announced guest. The bed shifted slightly under the weight of a new occupant. A small hand snaked over his side and up to his chest, pulling him back. He resisted and stayed firm, with his back turned.

The hand pulled again, but still he resisted. So a different approach was taken. He felt her shift closer and start peppering butterfly light kisses on his back and neck. Her hand lazily traced the muscles on his abdomen.

“What are you doing?” he asked disgruntled, ignoring her ministrations.

“I am providing stimulation to your erogenous zones” she responded between kisses.

“Why!?”

He barely got the single worded question out, since his voice caught in his throat when he felt her fingers brush just under his navel.

“Because it pleases you” she replied innocently.

“It would please me more if you would _stop_ ” he said through gritted teeth.

She did stop. She halted her movements but kept her hand splayed across his stomach. Razer breathed a sigh of relief and finally turned around determined to ask Aya what the hell she was doing there. The question caught in his throat when he finally turned to face her. The intensity of her gaze was unnerving. 

“ _Liar_ ” she finally whispered and dragged him close for a desperate kiss.

Razer’s eyes snapped open. He then sat up and jumped out of his bed like it was made of lava. Drenched in sweat and breathing heavily, he stared at the crumpled sheets like they were the scene of a crime. 

Aya was not there. It was just a dream, but what a dream. The intensity, the level of detail, the physiological effects... it wasn’t just a dream. It was the beginning of something. Something very very _very_ unfortunate.

“Damnit”, he cursed under his breath. 

He stepped into the shower and turned on the freezing cold water. He slowly banged his head against the wall, trying to clear his head. How could his subconscious conjure up those images? After waking up, he was in a state of unbridled panic, but for all his hot headedness, Razer was a creature of reason. He’d caught himself daydreaming about Aya before, but those day dreams never went passed seeing her smile or giving her a comforting hug. Once, he wondered what it’d be like to kiss her. But only once and he quickly scolded himself for even entertaining the thought. 

Succinctly put, he had never envisioned Aya as a sexual entity. Until now.

The extremely low temperatures washed away the signs of arousal from his body. In a very secluded, very masculine corner of his mind... he regretted wasting the first genuine erection he’d had in years. He’d half feared the thing wouldn’t even work any more. So, in a small way, he felt relieved. And then he felt ashamed he felt relieved. It was a shame/relief/guilt sandwich.

But it was impossible to indulge in a silly fantasy. He only hoped that it was a fluke, a blip, a way for his subconscious to torture him more, because the alternative would be, as previously mentioned, very unfortunate.

“It can’t be a mating cycle. It’s impossible...” he whispered. Standing firm, he turned off the cold water and stepped out of the shower. He stood in front of the mirror and glared at himself.

“It’s impossible”, he said again, sounding convinced... and feeling less so.

>>>

His uniform felt itchy. Which was not a good sign. 

“It’s just a coincidence... just a coincidence... just a coincidence...”

He repeated the phrase like his own personal mantra while he worked on the weapons systems of one of Oa's main training facilities. The Red Lantern attack left plenty of damage that needed to be repaired. Since he had nothing better to do, Razer offered his services as a defense engineer. The best defense is a good offense, and since the Green Lanterns were terrible at thinking offensively, they needed all the help they could get.

Getting back to his itchy uniform, he tried to convince himself it had nothing to do with the sensual dream from the previous night. Nevermind that mating cycles are caused by a hormonal imbalance which sometimes manifests itself under the form of skin rashes. Nope.

It was just a coincidence.

But his uniform had never felt itchy before. In all the years he had been wearing it, itches had never been a problem since the uniform is not made of fabric to begin with. He pushed those thoughts aside along with the desire to scratch in some pretty exotic places on his body.

Couple a power source here. Redirect energy there. Reconfigure targeting system. Input new explosive yield parameters. On and on he went, trying to lose himself in the technical specifics. Only it was having the opposite effect. He was growing more and more frustrated, only problem was, there was nothing to be frustrated with. All the machines were operating fine, every weapon system was responding well to the repairs. So there was no reason, at all, for his sudden rush of anger.

And because there was no reason behind it, he was becoming even angrier. The new defenses were performing superbly. Which irritated him even more. He targeted a pillar about 2,5 km away. Under normal circumstances, this was way out of the laser tourette's range. But with a single burst of green destructive light, an antenna on top of the pillar was blown to pieces.

Perfect result. But Razer trembled with rage and smashed his fists against it. 

“What a strange reaction”.

Aya’s voice rang from somewhere behind him. Razer exhaled and composed himself before turning around to see her hovering above him.

“By my estimations, this laser tourette presents a 94% increase in accuracy and a 270% increase in range. One would think that constitutes success” she said landing beside him. 

Razer squinted his eyes at her and tried to ignore the feeling of his uniform growing even tighter and hotter.

“Success is in the eye of the beholder” 

“Which eye? The right or the left?” 

Razer almost snorted at her naive question, but looking at the half smile on her lips he realised she was feigning ignorance.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?”

“Green Lantern Hal Jordan suggested I attempt to induce certain cognitive answers like laughter and amusement to help with my integration in the Oan social collective. To quote: ‘Everybody likes you if you’re funny’ to which I posed the query: ‘How does one get to be funny?’ to which he replied...”

Aya went on to explain in intricate detail the overly simplistic human vision of social interaction based on fart jokes and slapstick. Or at least that’s what Razer gathered briefly, because his attention was focused on her face, her eyes, her lips, her figure... Details of last nights dream flooded his conscience and with it a new wave of arousal.

“...and that is how the Bolovaxian learned how to play the harp which Kilowog felt was very amusing, but nobody in the room seemed to have a corresponding opinion. Razer?”

“Huh, what? Yeah, Kilowog, playing the harp. Ha-ha. Hilarious”

“Your body temperature is rising, your heart rate has increased and your pupils are dilated. Are you feeling alright?”

"I told you not to do that"

"Do what?"

"Read my vital signs like that" 

"The data is there and demands interpretation"

"But it is my data, which maybe I'm not willing to share"

"Then stop being so loud" she replied and almost smirked.

“I’m fine, he finally said exasperated. Look, this has all been fascinating... But do you have a reason to bother me? I’m actually trying to make sure that when this truce with the Red Lanterns fails, they won’t be able to blow through Oan defenses like they were walking through a field of dandelions... In other words, I’m busy.”

“The Guardians want a status update on the recovery operations. I offered to escort you to the meeting”

“The midget overlords want their update. Fine, let’s give it to them”

“Please, follow me” Aya advised before taking flight.

Razer followed suit but he quickly found that following her implied getting a perfect view of her back. She looked back at him and threw him a puzzled look. His life signs were still erratic. But he was following and she didn’t want to press the issue. He wasn’t in a good mood today, she realised. 

Razer was unaware she had been checking on him, as images of loving embraces filled his head. He shook his head, trying to get rid of the image of Aya as a lover, he tried to convince himself that touching her would have no more meaning than touching the equipment he had just worked with. 

But it would be different. Because she wasn’t a weapon or a piece of machinery. She was Aya, and in his dream her touches and her kiss felt just like those shared with a real, flesh and blood female. And that fueled his desire and his imagination, which was not good news for anybody.

His costume grew tighter with each second of flying after her, and his heart was pounding in his ears. He had to get away, before the impulse to grab her and kiss her became too strong. Before he would’ve found it impossible to satisfy his curiosity.

“Wait, I have to do something first. I’ll... uh... meet you there”, he quicky blurted.

“But”... 

Aya didn’t even have time to finish her sentence, because he was already out of sight. He might’ve left a puff of red smoke in his wake, if this was one of the old earth loony toons cartoons that Hal showed her. This would’ve been a perfect time to sigh. If Aya had lungs.

>>>

Razer took cover in one of Oa’s many dark corners, on top of a spire. He leaned against a wall and felt his heart racing through his uniform. He checked again around the corner to see if anybody had followed him or even noticed him, and then retreated back into the shadow of the great spire. He tried to get his breathing under control while asking himself: “What just happened?”

The fact that he was experiencing a mating cycle could no longer be denied. But it never started so abruptly. Usually, it took five or six days to reach the level where you couldn’t hide your condition in public any more. And most people of his species didn’t let it get that bad because... they _had_ a mate. And thus the problem could be easily solved.

He slumped even further down the wall.

“This shouldn’t even be happening” he whispered pathetically.

“Should and shouldn’t are such horrible words, don’t you think”

Razer jumped to his feet, and spun around. 

“Oh, it’s you” the Red Lantern spat with all the vile disgust he could muster.

“Greetings, brother” Saint Walker cheerfully greeted him, apparently immune to Razer’s vitriol.

“What do you want? Were you spying on me?”

“If I was then given that I just exposed myself, I would be a terrible spy”

Razer rolled his eyes.

“So if you weren’t spying, what were you doing?”

“Just soaking in the view, wondering about the universe’s mysterious ways. Last time we met, you were a raging maladjusted immature soul with anger issues, and I was nothing more than a hermit, surviving by the grace of my brother, Mogo. And now...”

Saint Walker paused and looked Razer up and down. 

“Now I’m a Blue Lantern!” he announced.

Razer caught the meaning behind that retrospective, and squinted his eyes, looking at Saint Walker.

“I will hit you”. 

“You will try” Saint Walker replied casually.

“I’d love to prove you wrong, but I actually do have to go”

Razer launched himself off the spire and wanted to fly away when he heard Saint Walker say:

“I sense you are troubled, brother”

“Well that’s interesting” he said turning around. “Because I sense that it’s none of your business”

“Peace is my business. And your heart is in desperate need of some”

Razer threw him one last look before flying away. He didn’t have a retort for that because, like it or not, as much as Saint Walker got on his nerves, even a broken clock is right two times a day. And even a moron like Saint Walker could see there was something wrong. So whatever was happening, whether it was a mating cycle or not, he had to keep himself in check.

>>>

“...and frankly, if Oa is the center of the universe, given the appalling state of its defense systems, the universe is doomed”

“We want your expertise, Red Lantern. Not your insults” Sayd reprimanded him.

“Fine, it is my expert opinion that you had it coming. Planetary sieges start in space, not around the orbit. Once they reach the orbit, it means you already lost. It is by sheer dumb luck that the Red Lantern invasion was thwarted given how close they got. You need battle satellites, space tourettes, asteroid watchtowers”

“We have our Lanterns. We don’t need to turn Oa into a military fort” one of the guardians offered.

“The problem with your Lanterns is that they are living, breathing things, not weapons. They get hurt and then they get dead. In case of another attack, would you rather lose people or equipment?” Razer asked, crossing his arms across his chest.

“Wow, Razer, I didn’t know you cared!”

The red Lantern ignored Hal Jordan’s remark, and Kilowog’s snickering. The two Green Lantern friends were seated next to each other at the round table in the conference room where they were summoned. The panel of guardians was seated above them, always insisting on being above everybody else, Razer observed.

“The kid’s got a point Hal” Kilowog said. “I mean, this solar whole system should be monitored, not just the planet’s orbit”

“We will take your advice into consideration, Red Lantern. But be advised, this is not Shard, and we will not fall prey to paranoia” Ali Apsa finally conceded.

“What you call paranoia I call survival instinct” Razer muttered taking a seat.

“Aya, if you please”

“Thank you, guardian Ali Apsa”

Aya stepped up in front of the panel and a holograph of a partition of Frontier Space appeared, a mix of red and green and grey areas. 

“Subsequent to their failed attempt of invading Oa, the Red Lantern Corps has retreated to this area. Shard is currently located here, under the control of Zilius Zax. Several Red Lanterns have abandoned the cause and seek to gain control over their own homeworlds. We have established a buffer zone between the sectors of the galaxy under Green Lantern jurisdiction and Frontier Space. Given that there are rogue elements who may pose a threat to Oan interests, both parties must ensure that this area of space is secure and will not be breached from either side...”

Aya continued with her presentation of Red Lantern activity, while Razer sat tense. Up until she started, he found it pretty easy to not think about her, since he was genuinely pissed off about how frugal Guardians had been in the area of security on the planet. But if he had to listen to her, he didn’t know what kind of reactions that would incite. He tried to get up at some point and subtly disappear from the proceedings, but Kilowog grabbed his shoulder and forced him back down on the chair.

“Where you think you’re going, poozer?”, the bolovaxian whispered forcefully. “She’s talking about your former buddies. We may need your input”

Razer shot him one of his famous glares and then sulked back in the chair, focusing his thoughts on strangling Kilowog, while a chorus of Red AND Green Lanterns clapped and cheered him. But the sound of Aya’s voice trickled down in his consciousness, until he found himself mesmerized by her presence yet again.

“The Red Lanterns have established a few observation outposts at the edge of the Neutral Zone and it is highly recommended we follow suit as soon as we have the resources and manpower required and Razer bends me over this table and has his way with me."

“WHAT!?” Razer shrieked.

The sound of his voice echoed in the room, and everybody flinched. Including Kilowog, and it takes a lot to make him flinch. The people in the room turned to look at Razer, with expressions ranging from annoyance to bewilderment. 

“Is there something that is not registering?” Ali Apsa asked slightly annoyed.

“I... I... could you repeat that last part?” Razer asked.

“I said we should establish observation outposts as soon as you are finished with the repairs on Oa’s defense systems” Aya explained.

“And that’s it...” Razer asked warily.

“Yeah, that’s it, and then you screamed like a little girl” Kilowog added.

“I do not scream like a... Ah... fine. I apologize for the interruption. Please continue” Razer admitted in defeat.

Aya threw him one last strange look and somehow Razer knew she was scanning him again. But if she did find anything out of the ordinary, she, thankfully, kept it to herself and resumed the information-dump on the Red Lanterns.

“As I was saying before being so bizarrely interrupted... The Red Lantern Corps has suffered a dramatic decrease in numbers, both because of deserters and the casualties sustained on Oa. We should expect them to be out scouting for new potential orgasms”

“Ok, that’s it” Razer announced and abruptly got up, feeling like he was about to explode.

“The meeting is not over” Ali Apsa warned.

“It is for me. Because I am busy trying to clean up after you, trying to keep you people safe even though, quite frankly, you brought this on yourselves. We Red Lanterns might be brash, but we’re not stupid. Those observation outposts are just a distraction to get you to think they actually care about your neutral zone. Trust me when I say, they _don’t_. And if you want further input”, Razer paused and looked in Kilowog’s direction. 

“Yes, they are going to push to enlarge their numbers. I suggest you send Green Lanterns to every single combat zone and war-ridden planet in Frontier Space. They are the true engines of the Red Lantern Corps. And I speak from experience...”

Razer took everybody’s silence as his cue to leave. Right before exiting he turned around and said:  
  
“Or better yet, send Saint Walker. I hear he’s in the business of peace. And I don’t think business is boomin’”

Razer stomped angrily down a hallway adjacent to the conference room he had been in a few minutes earlier. He scolded himself for this sorry state of affairs, acting like the damn handy-man of planet Oa, sitting in on meetings to hear status reports, having fantasies about... 

Aya.

He slowed down, his brain directing all its energy and focus into new images and new scenarios, all revolving around the same subjects. 

_Sex. Pleasure. Release._

“NO! Work, duty, restraint” Razer thought, fighting against his own mind.

_Touch. Touching your mate. Feeling her underneath you._

“Aya is _not_ my mate. She’s my friend, she’s my comrade, she’s... she’s... I think she’s right behind me”.

True enough, he turned around and there she was. 

“Are you feeling alright? You...”

“Don’t. Don’t tell me again that my pulse is up, my heart rate is messed up, my pupils are dilating or whatever... I told you. I’m not some blasted space anomaly that you can monitor and then extrapolate data to!” 

He realised he was close to shouting, but Aya didn’t flinch.

“I was going to say... that you have been acting strangely all day. And I seem to be the cause of it. Have... Have I done something to upset you?”

Near-rage made way for shame and regret, his heart slowly breaking at the idea that on top of everything, he was making Aya feel bad over something that was in no way her fault.

“No, he said and then again more forcefully. No. It has nothing to do with you. I just find it hard adapting to a life with the people that I’ve hated for so long. It’s... hard and incredibly frustrating sometimes. But you are not to blame. I’m sorry I gave you that impression”

Aya looked down and then looked back up into his eyes with a surprised look. He noticed then he was holding her hands, which is funny because he didn’t quite remember when he moved closer and took them into his. He let go instantly, as if her hands burned him.

“I... I gotta go back to work” he said and moved to leave.

“We will talk about this later?” she asked.

Razer hesitated but then quickly muttered: “Yesfinewhatever”. 

Aya watched him disappear once again. She looked down at her hands and then back in the direction in which he left.

“Liar” she whispered.

>>>

He was lying on his stomach on a soft surface. He realised it was a mattress of some kind, positioned in a white room with a familiar design. He felt a strange pressure on his lower back. Somebody was straddling him. A small hand traced his spine and then started to massage the back of his neck.

“So much tension” he heard a familiar voice say.

Razer groaned and buried his head in the mattress.

“I’m dreaming again, aren’t I?” he said with his voice muffled.

“Of course you are, silly” dream-Aya replied and proceeded to massage his shoulders.

In spite of himself, he moaned as he felt the tension drain away from his body. But it wasn’t tension because it wasn’t even a real body.

“If this is a dream, why does it feel so real?” he asked.

“You have suspected for some time now that Lanterns, Red Lanterns especially, have a different relationship to their subconscious than other sentient beings. Rings are fueled with emotion, and rage and willpower often find their origin in the subconscious”

“So Lanterns dream differently?”

“Yes, but you already knew this”

Yes he did, well at least he suspected. His nightmares always seemed incredibly vivid, and as for the other type of more pleasurable dreams... He never really had any, not since becoming a Red Lantern.

As he was thinking about the dynamic between his conscious and subconscious mind, Aya’s hands travelled lower and lower, kneading muscles, spreading warmth and pleasing tingles. Razer shifted slightly and Aya understood that as a sign to get up because he wanted to turn.

When he did, he saw that she was completely uncovered and immediately turned his head, avoiding the view of a naked Aya. 

“I’d like to wake up now” he pleaded.

Aya lowered her upper body till she came to rest on his chest, hands folded under her face. 

“No you do not” she countered ever so sweetly. 

“Yes. I do.”

“Why would you want to return to a world where we can not be together like this” she asked absentmindedly while tracing the tattoos on his chest with her hand.

He grabbed her wrist and gripped it tight.

“Because it’s _not_ real” he said, frustration evident in his voice.

To his surprise, her hand felt like a real hand, made of flesh and bone. He released it as soon as he grabbed it, but if his grip hurt her, she certainly didn’t flinch. Instead she brought her face closer to his and he even felt her breath on his cheeks.

She shifted her position slightly, so now her sex was pushing down on his. She was dripping wet, further emphasising that this Aya was as female as biologically possible. The sensation made his entire body tense up, and his erection was almost painful in its intensity. Her hand travelled down between their bodies and lightly grabbed his penis.

“Who cares about _real,_ when this feels so good?” she asked rhetorically, and then took him completely inside.

Razer let go of a breath he didn’t know he was holding and in spite of himself raised his hips so he could go deeper. The mating cycle only started about a day ago, but he felt like years and years of pent-up sexual energy were coming back in full-force, coagulating around this one dream, this one fantasy, a combination of hellish loss of control and heavenly sensation.

She rolled her hips and brought out a whimpered “Please” out of him, though he couldn’t tell if he was pleading for her to keep moving just like that or to stop. His hands moved of their own accord to her hips, to guide her movements.

“This isn’t fair, his voice sounding weak to his own ears. You don’t even sound like her. You don’t even feel like her”

“No... but I look like her. And she looks like Ilana. And that is _all_ you really care about...”

Razer froze. The mention of _her_ name had a dark effect on him. His expression turned from one of ecstasy to bitterness. 

“Get off” he growled. 

Aya ignored him.

“I said get off me!” 

His arms moved to push her off.

He didn’t have a chance to grab her because he woke up in his room, heart pounding, sleeping attire drenched in sweat and trembling violently. He got up and threw his legs over the side of his bed, staying like that, wallowing in his misery, until the tremble was reduced to a slight shiver. He stared at the wall in front of him, brow furrowed, making silent calculations.

Sleep was definitely out of the question until he got this sorted.

>>>

“I require stim meds” Razer stated matter of factly.

Soranik Natu could not have looked at him funnier if he had asked for a pink unicorn with a saddle made of diamonds. 

“You... stim meds?”

“Yes. Is there a problem?”

“I don’t know... do you think untimely death might qualify as a problem?” Soranik asked sarcastically.

“That depends. Is it my untimely death?” Razer quipped.

“You’re a Red Lantern. Which means your adrenal glands are in overdrive _every waking second_. You add stim meds to that, chances are you’ll go into cardiac arrest in less than an hour”

“Your concern is touching but I assure you, I am not that fragile”

“What do you need them for anyway?”

“I get bored easily when I’m not out saving the universe,” he said with a smirk.

“That’s interesting, because as I remember it, Hal saved the universe the last time while you were... uh... what were you doing exactly when he was fighting Atrocitus?”

“I can tell you what I was not doing. Not taking stim meds, because I didn’t need them then, but I need them now.”

“Cool. You’re not getting them from me though. And don’t even think of trying to glare me into submission. I may find you utterly infuriating but that doesn’t mean I want you to drop dead. Which is what will happen, in my professional opinion.”

Razer wanted to tell Soranik exactly where she could put her “professional opinion”. But he raised his hands in defeat and left her laboratory in the Oan infirmery. It’s not like he needed her help anyway, he just had an aversion to stealing. 

“Desperate times...” he mused.

Razer was the one that updated the security system, and he had made it a habit to always leave a loophole for himself on anything he designed. Of course, security was scarce in an infirmary on what was essentially a crime-free planet. But the medicine deposit still needed to be locked up, and wouldn’t you know it, Razer knew exactly how to open it.

>>>

“I need a sabbatical.”

“A what?” Hal asked puzzled.

“I need some time off” Razer said rolling his eyes, reminding himself to use small words with the Earth primates.

“For what?”

“It’s a personal matter.”

“You need to stock up on eyeliner or something?”

“Funny. No. I need some time for myself, time away from all of this” Razer said waving his arms around. He and Hal Jordan were standing on one of Oa’s landing pads, besides the Interceptor. 

“Hm. Did you finish your work?”

“You mean my voluntary work, that I volunteered for?” Razer underlined.

“I mean the work that you were doing that was supposed to keep Lanterns from dying, as you so emphatically pointed out the other day”

“It is far enough along that even your mediocre engineers could finish without me”

“A-ha... Where are you going to go?” 

“Like I said, it’s...”

“Personal. Yeah. I get it. Personal as in it’s related strictly to your person, or personal as in you don’t want other persons to know about it”

“Both.”

“Are you going to need a ship?”

"That you can track? No, thank you. I’ll manage.”

“Well if you can manage it, it means you won’t go very far. You’re definitely not going home.”

“Not that that is any of your business, but no, I’m not going back to the Forgotten Zone. There’s nothing for me there.”

“Did you tell Aya?”

Razer shifted uncomfortably.

“Because you know... she’s going to ask where you’ve gone. What am I supposed to tell her?” Hal specified. 

“Whatever you like. I’m sure she won’t even notice I’m gone.”

“Given how worried she’s been about you these last couple of days, I doubt that’ll be the case.”

“Worried? Why, what did she tell you?”

“She didn’t tell me anything. She asked, and I quote, ‘Hal, what is the probability that my actions and/or verbal inputs might have had a detrimental effect on Razer’s cognitive equilibrium’. Which in my mind sounds a lot like: did I do or say anything to piss him off?”

Razer smirked. Yes, that did sound exactly like something Aya might say.

“This has nothing to do with Aya” he lied.

“I never said that it did...” Hal started cautiously. “I just asked you what would you like me to tell her about your disappearing”

“Just tell her whatever the blazes you want!” Razer said angrily, feeling more and more frustrated. Why was the human making this so difficult for him!? 

“Whoa, easy there buddy... Okey, I’ll tell you went to look for a pony to get her for Christmas”

“What... is Christmas?”

“Nevermind... look, you are not a prisoner. You can come and go as you please. But I do need to know one thing...”

“What?”

Hal turned serious when asking the next question:

“What did you need the stim-meds for?”

Razer shifted his weight on the other leg and crossed his arms over his chest, defensively.

“Soranik told you about that...”

“Yes, she did. And if ever I knew somebody who didn’t need more stimulation...”

“Argh, this is exactly why I’m leaving!” Razer almost shouted.

“You have people here watching my every move. I can’t even get a blasted stim med capsule without somebody reporting it in! Why don’t you throw me in a cell next to Atrocitus if that’s how little you trust me!”

“It should be obvious I trust you, with my life, with everybody’s life on Oa given that we handed the keys to our defenses to you. But I can’t let you leave if I suspect there’s even a remote chance you’ll wind up somewhere hurt or worse... Aya would never forgive me for it”

Razer took a breath to calm himself. Between the mating cycle, the meds and his Red Lantern ring... it was getting harder and harder to remain calm. But he knew deep down Hal only wanted him to be safe. Simple minded as he may be, he was a good man.

“I promise you, I’ll come back and I have no masochistic tendencies. If I’m going, it’s to get better, not worse”

“Is there something wrong with you? Healthwise?”

“Hal, _please_ ”

“Whoa, you really are sick! In all the time I’ve known you I’ve never heard you drop the p-bomb”

Razer rolled his eyes, recognizing the chiding tone for what it was. The serious moment had passed and Hal believed him. Gave him his blessing as they say, but that didn’t stop Jordan from being an asshole. 

“No, seriously. You must be sick. Like fatally, to use that kind of language. Are you dying, are you? Can I get your helmet if you kick the bucket” the human kept rambling.

“Haha, yeah, very funny. Next you’ll call it my bunny-hat. Not like I haven’t heard that one before” Razer muttered, ignoring Jordan.

“Razer”, Hal called from the back, his voice turning serious again.

“What?” the Red Lantern asked turning around.

“Stay safe. Remember, you made a promise”.

“I will. Don’t worry about me. And make sure Aya won’t worry”.

Razer left the Green Lantern behind as he went to pick-up his gear. His plan was simple.

He was going to sweat it out.


	2. Chapter 2

Three days passed and all he succeeded in doing was to lose weight and go insane.

“What are you doing to yourself?” she asked crouching next to him

“Leave me alone”

She extended her hand to brush his face but he slapped it away.

“Don’t!” he warned.

Aya sat down next to him. Thankfully, she was wearing clothes this time around.

Razer sat with his back against what was left of a wall he pummelled just a couple of hours previous. The room he was in didn’t look much better than the wall. He wrecked it in one of his rages. 

The plan was _not_ working. 

On the first day, he exhausted himself by working out. 

On the second day... the rages started. When he wasn’t tearing up the building in a fit of anger, he was sobbing uncontrollably in a corner. 

More than anything though, he desperately wanted to see Aya. The real Aya. He wanted it harder than anything he had ever wanted in his life. Even harder than wanting Ilana back after he lost her. And that was an incredibly painful admission he had to make to himself. 

The hallucinations started on the third day.

“Why must you be so mean?” Aya asked.

“I wasn’t aware I must be polite to my hallucinations”

“If one is polite out of obligation alone, than it does not really count”

“You’re wrong. That’s the only time when it counts”

The vision sat with him in silence for a few blissful minutes.

“This is not a very effective method of ending a mating cycle...” she finally spoke up taking in the surroundings.

“No, it’s not, Razer conceded. But it was a long shot anyway...”

>>>

“...and then Ross turned around and there was Rachel! She had been standing in the door frame all along! And they kissed, and they proclaimed their love for each other and there you go. That’s my answer!” Hal explained enthusiastically.

“That is your answer to the question ‘How does one determine romantic attachment in reference to another person’?” Aya specified.

“Well that was what you said, what I heard is ‘how can you tell if you’re in love’?”

“I am confused...”

“Look kid. You’re young, you’re innocent, you live on a planet full of aliens, so you’re bound to be confused. But I guarantee you. The best place to go for all your life-related-fluffly-sentimental-crap-related questions... is late XXth century Earth television.”

“Could you narrow it down?”

“Not really, because I want you to discover the good stuff on your own” Hal grinned.

“Jordan!” a voice called from above. Soranik Natu landed besides Hal and Aya, looking pretty irate.

“Do you know where Razer is?” Soranik asked.

At the sound of the Red Lantern’s name, Aya noticeably flinched. 

“He took a sabbatical a couple of days ago. I have no idea where he disappeared too, he just said it was personal business and he definitely didn’t want anybody to know where he was going”

“Yes, I bet he didn’t. He took off with 10 packets of stim meds”

“What? I thought you said you didn’t give him any!” 

“I didn’t! He stole it. I was doing the weekly inventory today and I noticed them missing.”

“Wait... that doesn’t mean he took it.”

Soranik shot Hal a “are you really so dense?” look, one that was quite familiar to him. Carol used it all the time.

“We live on a planet of Green Lanterns. We’re all superheroes here. Who else would take it? Anyway, I just wanted you to know that I’m going after him.”

“After him? How exactly?”

“I’ve planted tracking devices on all my med-containers. doesn’t matter what corner of the galaxy he ran off to. I’ll find him”

“Tracking devices? What happened to ‘we’re all superheroes’?”

“Oh, the Green Lanterns I trust. It’s their friends that usually are a problem” Soranik said and made a move to leave.

“Wait, I’ll go with you” Hal announced.

“I will prepare the Interceptor” Aya quickly added.

“Soranik, could you give us a second?” Hal asked and the Korugarian nodded, stepping away. He turned back to Aya.

“I know you’re worried about him. But... I don’t know where he is and what he is doing but if we find him and he’s... in a bad way... I’m sure he wouldn’t want you to be there to see him like that”

“Hal, I assure you, in general Razer’s emotional status is very important for me. But in this particular context... I do not give a rodent’s buttocks what he thinks.”

Hal chuckled at Aya’s mangled use of Earth slang.

“I am joining you and that is not up for debate” she added.

“Fine. But don’t say I didn’t warn you.”

>>>

“Like I said... I knew he wouldn’t go very far” Hal reminded everybody as the Interceptor dropped out of warp in orbit around a planet less than two lightyears away from Oa.

Although it could sustain life, the planet was abandoned, with only a smattering of buildings here and there, most of them landing pads or outposts of various kinds.

“I am detecting minimal signs of civilisation. Small packets of populace in scattered areas” Aya recounted.

“This is not a place to build a life... it’s a place to get away from life” Hal muttered.

“There he is” Soranik announced pointing at a red circle on the screen in front of her. “He’s in a building complex in the southern hemisphere”

“And there’s a landing pad right there, Hal said pointing to an area right next to where Razer was located. Aya, let’s land this bird and see what mess our ol’ mister Chuckles has gotten into”

>>>

“I believe you require medical attention.”

Razer ignored the apparition while pacing angrily through the room, looking for something to hit. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much left. 

“Razer? If I believe that, it means you believe it. Your ring is running low on power, but you could still make the trip back to Oa.”

“How can I go back? I’m more messed up than when I left!”

“You need...”

“What I need is some peace and quiet” he shouted and slammed his red-light-encased fist in a wall. 

“You’re wasting your energy and you did not bring your lantern with you. If your ring gets fully depowered, you will have to look for help on the planet.”

“Stop acting like you’re my guardian angel. You’re not _her._ You’re some twisted figment of my imagination that is...” 

“Razer? Who are you talking to?”

The Red Lantern was startled by the voice of another person entering the room. He turned around to see Hal slowly walking towards him. The human kept his eyes on him while trying to avoid fallen debris on the floor. Razer shook his head trying to clear his thoughts. Was this actually happening or another hallucination?

“Hal... what are you doing here?” Razer asked cautiously.

“I think the far more interesting question is what are _you_ doing here?” 

The Green Lantern stop and took in his surroundings, looking at the ceiling full of holes and the semi-melted walls around him. 

“Did the building owe you money or something?” he joked, as he usually did in weird situations. 

And this was a distinctly weird situation. Razer was looking gaunt, neurotic, his body twitched in a sickly manner. 

“It’s... nothing. You should leave. I’m fine.”

“Look, I know you have the whole ‘dark brooding hero’ vibe going on, and that’s fine, but _this_ ... is pretty extreme _even_ for you.”

“Jordan, did you find him?” a voice echoed from another room. 

“Yeah, he’s in here” Hal shouted back.

“It’s not what it looks like” Razer quickly said, suddenly feeling apologetic.

“You mean running away on another planet so you can get high on stim meds and engage in property damage? Because that’s exactly what it looks like to me.”

“I didn’t...that is not what is happening here!”

Soranik Natu came bursting inside holding empty medical containers. She got right up in Razer face.

“Do you have a death wish? Did you take all of these? How are you even still breath...”

She dropped the containers and placed two fingers to his neck to check his pulse.

“We need to get you back to Oa, _immediately!_ ”

Razer shoved her hand away.

“I’m fine.”

“If by fine you mean ‘at death’s door’, then yes, you are pretty damn fine.”

He was getting ready to argue with her but suddenly forgot his train of thought. Aya appeared from behind Hal Jordan.

“Your pulse is irregular, your pupils are dilated, you’ve obviously not been sleeping, you’ve not been eating, you’v... Hey!”, Soranik was interrupted when Razer shoved her out of the way and took a couple of steps in Aya’s direction. 

He stopped right next to Hal and whispered: “Can you see her?”

Hal’s eyes did a quick zig-zag between the AI and the Red Lantern.

“You mean Aya? She’s right there.”

Razer sighed in relief.

He then moved closer, grabbed her face and kissed her. Aya was taken completely off guard and didn’t react in any way. Her computer-like mind froze, unable to process the avalanche of input. Hal stared mouth agape, and Soranik was just weirded out by the scene. She moved to pull Razer off but Hal stopped her and mouthed “wait” in her direction.

After a few seconds, Razer released Aya’s lips and wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. 

“I’m sorry” he said weakly against the crook of her neck.

Aya didn’t get to ask him what he was apologetic about, because his body went limp and the last thing he heard was Aya and Hal Jordan screaming his name. 

>>>

He woke up dazed and confused in one of the Oan infirmary's salons. An IV drip was sticking out of his right arm. The events of the last few days flooded his memory with a fury. He tried to get up but found that he didn’t have the strength to achieve that simple act. . 

He was drowsy and nauseous. The monitor next to the bed made was the only source of noise in the room. He wasn’t a doctor, but he could tell the readings it was displaying were not very good. He suddenly realised Hal was in the room with him. He was at the foot of the bed, supporting himself on the rim, worry etched across his face. 

“You can’t have my helmet” Razer mumbled with a faint smirk.

Hal smirked and tightened his grip on the edge of the bed.

“ _Now_ he makes jokes” he said looking at the floor. “You made a promise.”

“I know... it wasn’t supposed to go like this.”

“What wasn’t supposed to go like this? What is wrong with you?”

Razer sullenly stared at the wall beside him, intent on not saying anything.

“Damn it Razer. I’m getting really tired of this suffering in silence crap. Not to mention you lied to me to my face.”

“I never lied.”

“I asked you if you were sick. I even joked about it!”

“And I’m not. Not in the way you think.”

“Well you should talk to Soranik then and see what she has to say on the subject. Because I just had an earful. Every hormone in your body is basically going crazy. Some systems are shutting down, others are in overdrive. Your body is tearing itself apart. And stim meds alone could not have caused this, so tell me what did.”

Again, Razer kept his silence.

“You may die. That’s how serious this is. So, please, give us something...”

“Hal, trust me, I would rather die than... I just _can’t_ talk about it.”

It was the human’s turn to stay silent. With a grave face he said:

“Well that’s just unacceptable.” 

He turned around to leave and the doors to the salon slid open.

“Sometimes you can be a real asshole you know that?”

“If you were my friend you would respect my wishes” Razer said feeling the sting of shame. In spite of himself… he really did care what Hal thought of him. 

“I _am_ your friend. Which is why I’m not letting you die in a hospital bed because you _can’t talk about it_ . I don’t know how they do things in the Red Lantern Corps, but over here people actually care what happens to you. I care, Aya cares... and need I remind you that you kissed her just a little while ago. In case you were too out of it to remember. It was her _first kiss_ and now you want her to watch you die!? Unacceptable. So I’m going to go, I’m going to come back in a little while with Soranik, and you better be ready to tell us everything that is going with you... otherwise you really _are_ an asshole.”

Hal left the room, and as the doors slid shut behind him, Razer felt an imaginary noose tightening around his throat. He was trapped. 

What kind of warrior would he be if he allowed himself to die like _this_? 

He’d have to tell them everything. As utterly horrifying as the thought may be... They would all look at him like some kind of deviant, a pervert... and Aya. He didn’t even want to think what her reaction to the news would be. She would have every right to end their friendship, to never speak to him again. The thought caused him actual physical pain. Was that the effect of the mating cycle or something more? 

More than anything he hated the feeling of complete powerlessness. There was nothing he could do. He gave it his best shot, he tried to fight it, but he wasn’t strong enough. He was going to be utterly humiliated and nothing short of a miracle could save him.

Shuffling outside the salon doors let him know somebody was about to enter. He stood up and tried to put on a brave face, ready for the slaughter that was about to unfold.

Saint Walker entered the room, with his usual calm demeanor. 

“Oh, it’s you” Razer noticed, letting the annoyance be obvious in his voice.

“Greetings, brother. I am sorry to see you are unwell.”

The Blue Lantern came over and then as graceful as physically possible, took a seat next to Razer’s bed.

“If Hal sent you over to pester me some more, don’t make yourself comfortable. I’ve decided to tell the truth.”

“You mean you’ve decided to let everybody know you’re experiencing a mating cycle?”

Saint Walker’s words hit Razer with the strength of a thousand sons exploding. With a jaw somewhere on the floor and bulging eyes from shock he asked:

“How do you know about... about that?”

“I know quite a bit about quite a few rather more obscure subjects.Though I confess I’ve never heard of such a process end so badly.”

Razer rose up in a sitting position and sat staring at his hands, feeling more and more awkward. 

“It wasn’t supposed to reach this level of... exposed unpleasantness.”

“What exactly went wrong?”

Razer’s throat felt tight all of a sudden, like the words would rather strangle him from the inside than get out. But he pressed on...

“I don’t really like you. In fact I can’t stand you. But I suppose I need some practice talking about this. Do you know that my kind... we choose lifemates?”

“Yes...”

“The mating cycle is something that happens every couple of years and its purpose is to... strengthen the bond between the two. No matter where you are, no matter what you’re doing, you have to stop everything, go home and... reaffirm your love for the one you have chosen and has implicitly chosen you.”

“And you had such a lifemate...”

“I lost her” Razer confessed bitterly and hoped Saint Walker would not require clarification.

“So what happens if the lifemate bond is broken?”

“Some decide that it’s not worth living any more, some dedicate their lives to other pursuits, some even go on and choose another mate... But you’re not supposed to feel like that about anybody ever again.”

“Anybody?”

“You only get _one shot_ at true love” he explained, sounding resigned to a cruel fate.

“I assure you, the universe is not that cheap when it comes to love.”

Razer didn’t really know how to reply to that. He was still working through his own vortex of emotions to try and make sense of Saint Walker’s metaphysical nonsense.

“It led you to meet Aya, didn’t it?”

Razer frowned and glared at the Blue Lantern, because he knew he never said anything about Aya. Then again...

“It was that obvious?”

“It was obvious to anybody with eyes to see. What is still not obvious and what I don’t understand is how you ended up in a hospital room on your deathbed over a simple matter of having feelings for somebody else”.

“It’s not that simple.”

“Maybe not, or maybe you’re overcomplicating it”

“I had to try and stop it somehow.”

“Why?”

“WHY!? Razer asked in outrage. You know why... you know she’s... she’s not like us.”

“She is like us in all the ways that count and she’s not like you in all the ways that make her your potential soulmate.”

“That doesn’t matter. Nothing could’ve happened.”

“You could’ve accepted your feelings, instead of hiding them away like some shameful secret. This is who you are and this is how you love. Your mind and your heart would’ve eventually reached an agreement.”

“What dream world are you living in? I couldn’t just accept this. I _can’t_ accept this.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s not about her. It’s about _Ilana_!” Razer screamed in frustration.

He turned away from Saint Walker because he didn’t want to be seen breaking down and crying like a weakling.

“Breathe, Razer.”

“I’m breathing” the Red Lantern said through gritted teeth, back still turned.

“It’s alright. Nice long breaths. And after you compose yourself, why don’t you explain to me with that means?”

Razer rolled his eyes at Saint Walker’s suggestion, as if a longer intake of oxygen would magically solve everything. Eventually he turned but still refused to look at Saint Walker, instead opting to stare straight up at the ceiling. 

“Aya took a short stroll in my mind, once upon a time. She used the image of Ilana as a model for her physical form. That’s why this happened. That’s why the mating cycle started. It was a trick, a mistake, an illusion, one concocted by your precious universe which you said is not so cheap on love. Well, from my deathbed, I respectfully disagree, Blue Lantern.”

Saint Walker subtly nodded his head, signaling his understanding. He pondered Razer’s confession but came up with a unique conclusion of his own.

“I see, you think your new feelings towards Aya are based on a lie. And you turned that into another excuse to punish yourself”

Razer glared at his so called “brother”, feeling his agner reignited.

“You sanctimonious little sap. You don’t know me.”

“Perhaps I don’t but I do know that feeling like you have no choice is the most dangerous attitude one can have. You are the only one that can end this torture of your spirit”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Razer scoffed.

“Just breathe... Calm down...” Saint Walker repeated his advice from earlier on.

Razer plopped down on the bed, still feeling irritated, but also quite tired of trying to defend and explain himself. He briefly wondered if it was true he was dying, because he certainly felt drained after only half an hour of being awake. 

“Close your eyes” Saint Walker advised.

“Why? Are you trying to hypnotize me?”

“I am trying to show you the way to your salvation. Razer, trust me. Peace is my business, remember?”

>>>

Razer was drifting somewhere at the edges of reality, at the border between consciousness and unconsciousness. Driven more by desperation than by faith, he let himself be guided by Saint Walker’s voice, who convinced him to try meditation. He had never attempted to peak inside his own mind in such a fashion, perhaps because he was afraid of what he would find. So far, it was only darkness.

As soon as he thought that, the darkness gave way to a cluster of stars. And so he found himself floating in space, or what look like space because he didn’t recognise any of the constellations. He felt a vibration and the stars turned into spears made of light, shooting straight for him, reminding him of the hyper-jumps that the Interceptor would perform. 

He was travelling at light-speed through his own history, with every star being a memory, an event, something that stretched out beyond its own time frame to affect his life and his being. It was a dizzying experience, but it was also comforting to know that his life meant more than just one long fight after another. 

He abruptly stopped and crashed on a hard surface. He got up on all fours and felt pain in his entire upper body, which was strange, considering he never even got out of the bed he was in. He picked himself up and looked around. The sight took his imaginary-breath away. 

“What is it? What do you see?” Saint Walker’s voice thundered from all around, like the voice of an unseen god.

“You mean you can’t see this place?” Razer asked.

“Of course not. I can only show you the way Razer, but I can’t travel with you. I’m not a mind reader.”

“Where exactly is here? What is this place?”

“It is your centre, the core of your identity, the essence of who you are. The humans call it a soul, my people call it the...”

Razer heard Saint Walker say something that sounded like complete gibberish to him, but the Blue Lantern said it with great solemnity. Razer recognised some of the surroundings instantly, while others took some time to come into focus. 

There was his home in the Forgotten Zone, The one he shared with.. Ilana. Other buildings were crammed around it, buildings that didn’t belong there. Bits and pieces of a different, stranger kind of architecture like the spires of Oa and the towers of Shard. Places and spaces mixed together in an urban sprawl. 

Hovering above were strange winged contraptions, which Razer recognised as giant versions of the toys he used to build as a child. It really was an amalgamation of all the places and things that had meaning for him at some point or another in his life.

Except for one small detail...

“Why is it all burning?” Razer asked puzzled.

“Burning?”

“Yes, it looks like a Star Sapphire took a torch to this place”.

“The flames are violet?”

“Yes”

“Hmmmm...”

“What? What does it mean?”

“Have you come in contact with the violet light of the Star Sapphires recently?”

“You could say that” Razer said recalling how the Star Sapphires helped him reach Aya in time to save her.

“It all makes sense now.”

“Would you care to share...”

“Violet light is love in its purest form. That includes all its aspects: lust, desire, jealousy, infatuation, obsession. It can have different effects on different people. Razer, this means your feelings for Aya are true and they run deep. The violet light simply took them to their most extreme level.”

Razer kinda wished he had been warned this was going to happen before using the Star Sapphire technology. Not that it would have prevented him from doing what needed to be done at that, but like Saint Walker said... it would’ve saved him so much grief and torment.

“Alright" he said relieved. "Now that that’s out of the way, how am I going to put all this fire out? What am I supposed to do now?”

“I don’t know” Saint Walker said simply and Razer could swear he heard him shrug.

“What do you mean you _don’t know_?” The Red Lantern asked irritated.

“I can’t tell you how to take control of your own inner universe. Every soul is different. You should do whatever feels natural for you.”

Razer racked his brain trying to figure out what felt “natural” for him to do in a situation like this. Looking closer at the flames that engulfed the landscape he realised he wasn’t alone... There were people trapped in the fire, familiar figures and faces that were cut off from him by the flames. One of them, looking at him from the distance, was the Green Lantern Shyir Rev.

“Heeelp meee” he moaned. 

“I’m trying...” Razer responded desperately. 

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted a familiar face that nearly made his heart jump to his throat. Ilana, in a ring of violet flame, with her hand stretched out to him, her eyes pleading.

“Razer... don’t get distracted!" Saint Walker warned. "The people you see are not people. They are not even ghosts. They are visual representations of whatever emotional meaning they hold for you.”

Razer shook his head trying to refocus. Even though it pained him, he had to ignore Ilana for now.

“The violet fire... it’s emotion right?” he asked the invisible Saint Walker.

“Yes.”

“Can I fight it? Can I fight fire with fire? Use another emotion?”

“You can try” Saint Walker simply replied. “But whatever you do, don’t...”

Razer didn’t wait around for saint Walker to finish his thought. He launched himself into the air, stretched out his ring arm and said the Red Lantern oath, focusing on everything that could provoke his rage.

_With blood and rage of crimson red,_

_Ripped from a corpse so freshly dead,_

_Together with our hellish hate,_

_We'll burn you all--That is your fate!_

A flood of burning red light was unleashed from his upon the burning ruins. The recoil pushed Razer back but he kept the energy flowing. It seemed to have an effect, the violet flames disappearing under the red assault. He stopped to inspect his handy-work. Upon descending, the landscape again exploded into violet light. 

Reignited violet flames lashed out at him, like they had a mind of their own, reaching out to whip him like fiery tentacles. Razer dodged the fire, and landed down further away than he had been before.

“It made it worse!” he shouted to the heavens enraged.

“If you had waited for me to finish I would’ve told you that you can’t under any circumstances use your anger. Rage and love are both at the far end of the emotional spectrum. They are unstable and if used against each other they will feed off each other.”

“Great. What am I supposed to do now!? I can’t use the one thing I have plenty of?” 

“Surely, even a primitive like you has other feelings.”

Once again, Razer was stuck. Sure, he had other feelings, but it wasn’t something he was used to really think about, not to mention anything he ever thought he could use as a weapon. 

The familiar burning humanoid effigies in the distance caught his eye. The people he helped destroy, the woman he once loved. Trapped in the recesses of his mind because he failed them somehow, or at least he felt like he failed them.

A chill ran up his spine and he shivered involuntarily. 

“Fear” he whispered, putting a name to what he was feeling.

“Fear.. yes... what are you afraid of?” Saint Walker asked.

“I’m afraid I’ll never be able to make up for all the pain and destruction I’ve caused” Razer replied without thinking. 

He noticed the temperature had dropped abruptly. He could see his breath now and he started to tremble. The sky above started to glow yellow, and the flames began to shrink.

“It’s working!” he announced, teeth chattering.

“Don’t get distracted” Saint Walker repeated. “Continue?”

Razer brought his arms up to warm himself. He noticed his ring hand.

“I’m afraid that without this ring I’m useless. If I lose it I’ll become weak and powerless.

It grew even colder, he was shivering uncontrollably now, but the fact that the flames were retreating even more gave him strength. He forced himself to look in Ilana’s direction again, forcing himself to relive the day he lost her.

“If I’m weak, I won’t be able to protect the ones I love” he whispered.

He fell down on his knees and hugged himself tight, the frozen air preventing him from speaking. But he kept relieving the most painful memory he had, acknowledging that he was deathly terrified to go through something like that again.

But even though it got impossibly cold, so cold he feared his blood might freeze in his veins, and even though the flames had retreated, they weren’t completely extinguished. The fires still burned and they dominated the landscape.

He felt like he could get up again, the air was warmer, the yellow tint of the sky was gone. 

“I failed. Those were my greatest fears, but it wasn’t enough” Razer noted.

“You are too driven to let yourself be overcome with fear, Razer” Saint Walker commented.

“Thanks for the compliment but that doesn’t really help me right now.”

“Yes it does...”

“Can you stop with your blasted metaphors and just tell me what to do!”

“I’ve already told you.”

“Wait... do you mean... I should just use willpower?”

“Like I said, you are a driven individual”

Razer sighed and clenched his fists, unsure how to proceed, which was ironic given how much time he’d spent with the Green Lanterns.

“Am I supposed to say the _stupid_ oath?” he asked annoyed.

Saint Walker chuckled.

“No. You just need to be honest with yourself. How badly do you want this malady of the heart to go away?”

“Pretty badly” Razer muttered.

He launched himself into the air and above him, green tinted storm clouds started gathering. He cleared his mind of everything and focused on one single thought: the violet energy was an invader, an infection that needed to be treated and expunged.

He felt his skin prickle, a current ran up his spine. He briefly wondered if this is how the Green Lanterns felt when they projected their hard light constructs. 

Somewhere in the distance he heard a monstrous thunder, and the clouds above him started circling against each other. High winds began to batter the flaming buildings, dragging the flames in a whirlwind before permanently extinguishing them. 

The funnel of a tornado descended from the clouds and Razer found he could control it. With his arms stretched out he tried to direct the course of the green twister, which fought against the violet inferno. The flames would disappear, gobbled up by mad gales and chaotic currents.

Razer was pleased to note the progress, but it was actually quite hard to resist being pulled into the twister, while at the same time trying to control it. He felt like he was trying to nudge Mogo from its orbit all by himself. Every muscle in his body hurt from the strain it was placed under.

“I can’t give up” he muttered through gritted teeth.

He was almost there, just a little more wind, a little more force, a little more willpower, and nothing would remain of the fire that seared his soul and destroyed the last couple of days of his life.

Without warning, he lost control and got pulled in the vortex and than spit back out. He hit the dirt with a thunk and cursed the strange physics of this place where even if he didn’t have a physical body he still felt pain. Looking up, he saw his tornado of willpower dissipate, while the centre of his soul-construct still burned. 

He slammed his fists on the ground.

“Why isn’t it working? What does it take?!” he screamed in frustration.

He got up slowly with a defeated look watched the ardent violet light show in front of him.

“Why isn’t it working?” he asked again, feeling despondent.

Somebody grabbed his shoulder and he looked up startled.

“Perhaps because you do not wish it.”

Razer turned around to see Aya standing behind him with concern in her eyes. There it was again. That face. Those eyes. That look of innocence mixed with determination. Was it another dream? Was it part of this strange soul-construct? It didn’t matter, Aya was here and seeing her made him feel better.

Which was ironic given how hard he had been struggling to remove lust and desire for her from his heart. But seeing her made him realise that even if it would’ve been as easy as snapping his fingers, if it meant Aya would become like a stranger to him, he would hesitate.

“You’re right of course,'' he admitted slightly embarrassed.

He closed the distance between them, because he needed to be able to look her straight in the eyes for what he was about to say next.

“For the last five years,” he started, “I’ve been torturing myself every single day. For all the horror that I’ve seen, some of my own doing, I never thought I’d see a miracle. But... there she was... this person that willed herself into existence. Out of nothing she came to us, to me. A new individual without any fear or any cynicism. So I thought to myself, if she can do that, surely I can find my way out of the darkness. So no, I don’t ever want to lose these feelings. I don’t ever want to lose the sense of awe and fascination for everything that you are and everything that you’ve accomplished.”

After he finished talking, he noticed he made that gesture again where he grabbed her hands into his without realising. But this time Aya didn’t look down surprised, she didn’t flinch, her eyes were glued to his, listening with fascination of her own. 

Razer let go of her hands and turned away to look back at the burning city of memories before them.

“But I have to take control of it,” he said. “I have to regain my peace of mind. I’ve made so many mistakes, so many wrong calls. Just this once I want to make the right one.” 

“I hope you find a solution,” Aya whispered coming next to him. 

She took his hand in his, something that this time he noticed straight away. Looking down at their intertwined fingers he smiled faintly.

“I hope so too” he agreed.

Suddenly, he felt a drop of liquid land on his nose. He wiped away with his free hand and stared at it. It was water, colored in a vibrant shade of blue. Up above the clouds which until moments ago formed a heavy blanket of green now sported different shades of blue. His mind raced trying to figure out what this meant. The implications were... astounding.

“Hope. I have hope” he realised in awe.

“What do you hope for?” Aya asked enthusiastically, squeezing his hand in hers.

Razer tried to make sense of his thoughts and feelings. An entire menagerie of hopes and aspirations filled his consciousness. They were however difficult to articulate.

“I hope I can be a force for good, that I can help people, that I can keep innocents from being hurt” he finally opened up. 

The few random droplets now turned into a light rain, one that only served as further motivation for Razer. He enthusiastically added more hope to the pile.

“I hope Hal never regrets saving me, that one day I will be free of the rage in my heart.”

The memory of holding Ilana’s dead form in his arms popped in his head and he felt the familiar pain, this time tempered by hope.

“I hope that with every little bit of good that I do, I’m honoring Ilana’s memory” he said, with less enthusiasm but more determination than before.

The rain was pouring now, and Aya looked at the skies happily, relieved that it would all work out. Razer looked at her just as happy, until he realised what he had really hoped for. 

“What is it?” Aya asked noticing he was staring at her.

Razer snapped out of it and shook his head.

“No, nothing. It’s nothing”

Just as he said the words, the fall of rain dropped in its intensity. Aya noticed the change the instant it happened, She grabbed both of his hands, suspecting that he was retreating back into his shell.

“No! Do not abandon this. What do you hope for?”

“It’s ridiculous. I can’t say it”

“Razer, please, you have to say it... You have to believe it!”

The rain had been reduced to a slight drizzle now. Razer still shook his head, refusing to acknowledge his wildest hope.

“You don’t understand. It’s impossible, it will _never_ happen”

“You do not know that, she said cupping his face. It will not work unless you believe it. Say it!”

“No, no, I _can’t_ ” he struggled and tried to get out of her grip.

“Razer, _please!_ ” she pleaded bitterly. Whatever she was, a dream or the representation of his feelings for her, Razer took notice that she began tearing up. He brushed a finger along her cheek and wiped a newly formed tear. The sight of a crying Aya was enough to defeat him.

“I hope.. one day... you will feel for me what I feel for you” he finally confessed.

Aya smiled, and it was a strange smile Razer noticed. One he’d never seen her show before. She pulled him and kissed him. It was a chaste, inexperience kiss, but it had a profound effect. What had been just a tentative statement, turned into a stout resolution. The kiss reassured him and soothed him. 

All will be well...


	3. Chapter 3

Another thunder permeated through the clouds, and a true storm started, pouring gallons and gallons of water across burning buildings, empty fields, flaming giant flying toys and everything in between. Violet fire was chased away by a torrent of hope. Razer however, was oblivious to all this. 

He only broke the kiss when he felt the rain stop entirely. Looking down at Aya, her eyelids fluttered briefly, and he could swear she looked slightly flustered. He looked at what was supposedly the nexus of his being. Except for a few puffs of smoke here and there, it wasn’t much worse for wear. Wanting to take a closer look he began to walk towards it, before he felt something hot against the soles of his feet. Looking down he saw molten rock, in a vicious red colour, distorting the air around it. 

“Ah, the burning embers of my rage" Razer thought. "Ready to be lit anew when the situation will call for it”.

Looking again at his conglomerate of memories and traumas... he sighed in relief. it was over, somehow, the crazy stunt work. And, best of all, nobody would ever know it. Saint Walker would keep his word, right...

“Damn, Saint Walker, forgot all about him,” Razer muttered. “Saint Walker! It worked, it’s over... Hello?”

“He can not hear you,” Aya said catching up with him. “In your meditative trance you could communicate with him, but now you are dormant.”

“I fell asleep?”

“The effects of the violet energy dissipated immediately. Your hormone levels regulated themselves within seconds and your vital signs stabilised” Aya explained.

“So I’m sleeping now" he said crossing his arms. "This is a normal dream?”

“Depends what is a normal REM cycle for you” Aya offered.

The landscape faded away and the two were left in darkness, save for Aya’s green aura and his red one. So this was sleep, after a week of restless nights. He did feel rejuvenated, where just a few minutes earlier he felt like he could crash in any second.

“Well, now what do we do?” Razer asked rhetorically and then threw Aya a look.

Aya looked like she was ready to suggest something but it couldn’t possibly be as interesting as what he had in mind. 

So he swooped in, grabbed her arms and kissed her forcefully.

No time to think. Just a need to satisfy every urge and desire that had plagued him for a week and even beyond that if he was honest with himself. He kissed Aya hingrily, holding tight as he was carrying her to a bed that materialised out of thin air. He slowed only to deposit her gently on the bed, but as soon as he covered her body with his, his mind became too clouded with desire to provide any elegance to his movements.

He was terrified his mind might try and screw this up for him, by way of conjuring up images of a naked Hal Jordan or something even more terrifying. A naked Kilowog.

Aya clung to him and clumsily tried to imitate his movements. Most of all she seemed to be unaware of what to do with her hands so he grabbed them gently and positioned them around his neck. With a knee between her legs and supporting himself on his elbows, he was comfortably positioned to explore her upper body. Which he did with fervor. 

He kissed, and nibbled and licked her lips, explored the strange space of her mouth and sucked gently at her tongue, trying to coax her to deepen the kiss even further but Aya felt braver in other ways. Her hands trailed downwards towards the muscles on his back, raising goosebumps and heat wherever they went. Smiling against her cheek, he planted kisses along her jawline and started to feel her chest plate poking him uncomfortably. How the hell would he get it off?

“Razer?”she whispered.

“Yes?” he answered nuzzling her neck.

“We have company...”

“What?”

He turned to his right to look in the direction she had been looking and nearly jumped off the bed.

Hal and Kilowog were sitting crouched near the bed staring at them with huge grins, looking like excited puppies that were just about to get a delicious treat. Oh, and they were naked too. Their more masculine appendages were hidden by the bed, which is something Razer was incredibly grateful for, otherwise he would’ve been scarred for life. He closed his eyes and wished the embarrassing spectres to go away. He tentatively opened one eye and saw that they were gone.

“Sorry about that” he said apologetically and turned his attention back to Aya.

The look of fear in her eyes gave him pause. He pulled back to give her room to breathe and then felt ridiculous because of it. Because obviously she didn’t need to breathe being an artificial life form and second of all, this was a dream. He wasn’t breathing either come to think of it.

“Is there something wrong? Am I moving too fast?”he asked tentatively.

Again he scolded himself. Sex dreams didn’t usually involve etiquette. This was all _so_ messed up. 

“No,” she said getting up. “This location... it is so... neutral” she explained.

He looked around to determine what the problem was. They weren’t anywhere in particular. 

“Could we relocate to the Interceptor?” she asked, her tone pleading.

“That would be fine” he answered quickly.

He got up and grabbed hold of her hand. With both of them standing, the grey dull walls faded away, dissipating into the familiar white and green of the Interceptor’s main bridge. Razer was surprised by this since he focused initially on his private quarters. But if dream-Aya wanted to do it on the main bridge... well... she _was_ kinky! 

_“If you are going to destroy me, there is a more expedient method”_

Razer was startled by the sound of Aya saying those words, but it wasn’t his companion who said them. They weren’t alone on the main bridge. No, the scene was painfully familiar to him. Drusa, standing over Aya’s limp body, ready to destroy everything that was special about her. And then right on time, he saw himself step through the Star Sapphire portal, unleashing his fury on the evil bitch.

“I don’t understand”, Razer whispered watching the scene unfold.

“This is where it all started,” Aya replied.

Razer remained silent. Yes, it was the Star Sapphire energy that triggered the mating cycle, but he didn’t know why, he suspected that wasn’t exactly what she was referring to.

“But am I remembering this? Is this a memory? It doesn’t feel like a memory” Razer pressed on.

“Because it does not belong to you. It is _my_ memory... Well, my recording of the events that day” Aya answered and turned to face him.

“You don’t _have_ memories" Razer said puzzled. "You’re not real. You’re just a figment of my imagination. Right?”

Her silence spoke volumes, and each of those volumes threatened to initiate a mental breakdown within him. 

“Ri..right?” he asked again, his voice trembling.

Aya turned away and he was thankful for that, because if his fears were correct, he literally could not look her in the eye.

“You’re not the only one who struggled to readjust after that day" she began, seemingly ignoring his impending freakout. "Despite your reluctance to share information about that particular incident, it was obvious you formed an emotional attachment towards me. And though I wanted nothing more than for you to open up about those emotions, I resolved to respect your privacy. Well... that statement is only 50% accurate. In reality I did not want to hear that these feelings were a byproduct of your love for Ilana, even though it seemed like the most viable explanation. But when Hal Jordan told us that you were unwilling to communicate the cause of your illness, an illness that seemingly threatened your existence, the desire to respect your privacy paled in comparison to the need to keep you alive”

Aya paused and Razer braced himself mentally. She finally turned around to look at him.

“If you would not give us the information we needed, I would extract it myself. I do not know why I never reported this, but I downloaded the schematics to the mental projector device when we rescued you from the Frontier prison. I thought it would be of use for Kilowog, as a combat-simulator. My prototype was not as invasive as the original and it was supposed to be a quick extraction. But when I activated the device...”

“You landed in the middle of... something else.”

“Yes”, Aya complied meekly.

Razer felt lightheaded, his throat was tight and his thoughts jumbled.

“You were there. You know... _everything_ ” he said, his voice strained.

“I know you needed help but...”

“And then I jumped on you like some kind of animal,” he interrupted her explanation. “By the stars, I’m _disgusting!_ ”

Unable to stand any more, he let himself fall back and slid with his back down the wall. He pushed his hands into his eye sockets and struggled to calm himself. This was turning into a nightmare. He simply wasn’t built to withstand this amount of embarrassment and shame.

“Razer, stop it!” Aya demanded coming next to him. She pulled his hands away from his face. “You are _not_ disgusting.” 

Razer snorted and turned away, unable to look at her.

Aya however was determined. She slid her open palm up to the side of his face and turned it back towards her. 

“I am not divulging all of this to make you feel ashamed or guilty. I am telling you this because you need to understand that I am not perfect. I do not deserve to be placed on some pedestal. I made a mistake. I invaded your privacy because I could not conceive of losing you. And I used a technology that you hate without your permission. Why are you not angry with me? Based on accumulated empirical data, you should be furious.”

“I’m more concerned about what you found out then how you came to find it”, he tried to explain, though she did have a point, but he could be angry about that later, right now he was stuck on being mortified.

“I already suspected you had feelings for me and romantic attachment is a basis for sexual expression.”

“Please stop,” Razer pleaded painfully. “I need to wake up. I need to leave Oa.”

“We _need_ to address this. Why is the thought of having intercourse with me, _the real me_ , so disgusting to you?”

“It’s not... you don’t...”

Razer couldn’t seem to find the words he was looking for. This whole situation felt surreal, he never expected to have this conversation with the real Aya. Not so soon after... after everything.

“You don’t deserve to be treated like that”, he finally got out.

“Like what? Like a _real person_?”

Again, Razer didn’t know what to say so he just sulked. Thankfully, the wave of shame had broken and left him feeling a little irritated over the fact that Aya was forcing him to face his feelings head-on. However, that only made him want her more. 

Aya correctly read that the dangerous swell of masochistic feelings was subsiding, and a closer physical proximity was allowed, even encouraged. She came closer and gently snuggled up against him, placing her head on his chest.

“I do want to be a real person. And as for these undisclosed desires... They are part of you, just like this ship is part of me”

Razer closed his eyes and exhaled, remembering Saint Walker’s words to him: ‘this is who you are, and this is how you love’. He finally felt the tension drain away from his body and let himself entertain the thought that Aya might actually care about him... and could one day care about him like ‘that’.

“You don’t find the idea just the tiniest bit repulsive? Wait, do you even know what the idea is?`` he asked.

Aya raised herself to look him in the eyes.

“Yes, I know how most intelligent humanoid species engage in coitus, and from my theoretical understanding of it, it can be a very positive experience. I do not find it repulsive, I do not even understand what repulsion is. But I do understand the concept of mutual satisfaction and for that to be achieved, we would need to be... creative.”

“Creative? Please expand on that” Razer asked raising an eyebrow.

Aya smirked.

“Do you know how the mental projector actually functions?”

“It _projects_ things in your mind?”

“It transmits a series of impulses to the brain which in turn builds a particular image, using the resources available to it. While I am here I am using your neurological pathways to process information. Basically, I can feel things the same way you do”

“Oh” Razer mouthed finally understanding what she was saying. In the vast recesses of his mind, they were equals, in every way.

“But I still need to adapt my form to... to... I ca not do it on my own. I need...”

It was Aya’s turn to run out of words to explain what she needed.

“You need my memories” Razer offered.

“Yes” she said, sounding guilty. 

Of course, it made sense. She couldn’t perform an action, without understanding that action. And while she may have a theoretical understanding, at this particular conjecture, practical application required a practical set of data. 

“I understand if it is too much of an intrusion. It is not very practical to harbour feelings for.. somebody so... different”, she observed with a twinge of sadness.

“It’s not very practical to want to be with somebody as messed up as I am”, he countered.

The two smiled at each other, suddenly aware of the ridiculousness of their situation. A Red Lantern and an AI, trying to have sex with each other. It was an incredibly complicated, long and awkward process. But, Razer calculated, if something proved to be so hard, than the payoff should be amazing.

“Do it”, he said.

“Are you sure? They are your most intimate memories.”

Razer closed his eyes and exhaled an unsteady breath. Would Ilana mind that she was providing the building blocks for a new relationship? He would always love her, but he wanted new memories.

“Do it” he repeated, determined.

“Alright... this will look... unusual.”

“Aya, there’s nothing about this week that hasn’t been unusual.”

She nodded and leaned back. Even though Razer thought nothing could surprise him any more, he had to rectify his position. He hadn’t seen nothin’ yet. Aya’s body devolved into her source code, streams of green characters that flowed in all directions and with all possible speeds, but still holding a humanoid shape. It was a unique experience to see this infinitely complex flow of data that made up an individual. 

Unusual didn’t even begin to cover it.

“Now you have seen me naked”, he heard Aya say, which was strange in itself, coming from a bunch of programming code.

“That was actually funny, you’re getting better at this humor thing”

No she wasn’t, but he felt like she needed the encouragement. 

“I heard that. Inner monologues are somewhat redundant when you are inside your own mind” Aya reprimanded him

“I knew that!” Razer shot back.

He realised that he was “leaking” code himself. Entire blocks of red characters appeared above them, hovering.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Your memories, converted into code” Aya explained.

There it was. A computer script of his romantic past, colored in red. Aya, or the program formerly known as Aya, sifted through the data that Razer’s memories provided. Selecting bits and pieces and lines of code, integrating them into her own matrix. Razer was surprised she was satisfied with taking only crumbs from such a huge banquet of information. Surprised and grateful.

The process lasted a few more minutes, or at least what passed for a few more minutes in dream-time. His memories dissipated and while he expected Aya to put herself together on the spot, she flew away on the corridor. He got up and followed her, having an inkling where she went.

“You should know, that I am not actually _that_ kinky” he heard her voice reverberate through the walls of the Interceptor.

He snorted and quickly made his way to his quarters. The doors slid open and the sight gave him an instant erection. Whatever she selected from his memories she put it to good use. A “ completely humanoid and naked Aya was waiting for him on the bed. 

“Is this acceptable?” she asked looking over herself slightly worried.

“What? Yes,” he replied, trying to refocus his attention on her face. “It’ll do”

“I tried to achieve a proportional balance. The males of most intelligent mammal species prefer mammary glands with a larger diameter. Should I...”

“No... No... believe me. All your proportions and your diameters are fine.”

She kept the features that made her distinct, like the slight green glow of her skin and her strange blue eyes, but at the same time she tapped into some anatomical paradigm of the perfect female that most males have in their mind somewhere.

With slow and steady steps, trying to get his breathing under control, he came over to the bed, but stopped at the edge of it. With Aya gazing up at him, he ran a hand through the short white hair she decided to give herself. The silvery strands felt like silk between his fingers, and the colour looked great on her, but he couldn’t resist to mess it up, trying to break the tension in the room. She swatted his hand away, playfully.

She stretched out her hands and cupped the sides of his face, trailing his features with her fingers his lips, his cheeks, his jawline. She gingerly touched the markings on his face and followed them down, this neck and chest.

“So this is touching” she remarked eventually.

“Does it feel different?” he asked, his voice a harsh whisper.

“It is difficult to describe. Instead of analyzing data, I am absorbing it. Do I feel different?”

He kept his hands on her bare shoulders until then, relishing the feel of soft skin instead of bulky metal. But even though hardlight had been replaced with epiderme, his fingers still tickled with the feeling of subtle vibrations. 

One of the first things he noticed about Aya’s avatar form is that it hummed, a fainter version of the sound made by the Interceptor’s engines. It was bizarre, but comforting, seeing as it was essentially Aya’s heartbeat.

“Well, this context renders useless whatever experience I’ve had so far with physical contact where you’re concerned... but I’m pleased to say everything that is unique about you is still there. It’s just more... manageable”

She seemed happy with that answer. Her hands stopped their exploration just below his navel, and he sucked in his breath, his eyes darkening. The two kissed gently in the comforting darkness of Razer’s room. It felt different than previous kisses, her lips feeling softer and more real, but there was still a small electrical charge, incredibly subtle and familiar and... her.

Aya’s free hand moved to the back of his neck, massaging the tense muscles there, proving that this time she knew exactly what to do with her hands. 

She layed down and tugged him to follow suit.

“That’s enough for now” Razer whispered, resisting, 

“Please explain,” Aya requested suddenly looking worried. “Is there something wrong?”

“Everything is fine. It’s perfect” he quickly said trying to soothe her fears. He grabbed the cover off the bed and wrapped it around her, for modesty’s sake and also because he didn’t think he could resist her if he had to keep staring at her naked form.

“I just don’t think we should be doing this right now. If the possibility exists in the future than that’s good enough for me.”

“I do not understand the point of a delay”

“The point is... You never said you loved me” he spoke softly. There wasn’t any hint of reproach, merely stating the facts.

“I...” she started but he cut her off.

“I know you care. You wouldn’t be you if you didn’t care. But you know what my greatest hope is. You were there, you saw it. It’s not for us to be together like that, though believe me, I want to. Right now though, you simply don’t have the same feelings for me as I do for you. And that is fine, it is a starting point. We can build from that, we can learn from each other, but we’re not going to make love until there’s actual love involved. On both sides.”

Aya listened intently and gave a quick head not to signal her understanding. She squeezed the cover around her shoulders, but not from a lack of heat. 

“What if I never gain the ability to have those feelings?” she asked feeling self-conscious, probably for the first time in her short life.

Razer exhaled and then spoke with the confidence that she seemed to be lacking all of a sudden.

“That’s why it’s called hope.”

He came to lie down on the bed and Aya snuggled against him, placing her head on his chest again. They sat that way for a long while, talking, sharing and occasionally exploring what each had to offer in terms of kissing prowess. But while Razer’s body might screamed for more than just kissing, he could easily ignore it. After the week he’d been having, after the fire and the brimstone, after Aya finding out everything and thankfully not running away in abject disgust... he was happy if he could just hold her.

And then came the time to wake-up.

>>>

“So our gorgeous lady-doctor tells me you’ve made a complete recovery” Hal said standing in Razer’s room at the clinic. The human Green Lantern looked pretty pleased with the situation, although he couldn’t resist asking

“But despite the fact that you're less insane than 24 hours ago, which by you standards is still pretty crazy, I hear you still don’t want to tell us what was going on.”

“It’s...”

“Personal, yeah, I thought you might say that. Is every personal thing about you so damn dangerous?”

“No, only the interesting bits” Razer joked, but then turned serious. “Hal, I know I made it seem like I didn’t care. About what happened to me, about how you would be affected. But trust me when I say that it was something I hard to work through on my own and if I thought for a second you or Soranik or anybody could have helped, I wouldn’t have opposed in any way.”

“Look kid, I don’t need to know every little thing that happens to your precious innards. But I do need you to be alright. Can you guarantee this will never happen again?”

“No. Not this particular condition any way” 

“And the stim meds...”

“I already showed Soranik how to change the security codes on the medicine cabinet.”

“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t go in when you wanted to. You’re still... you.”

“Fine, I’ll program an alarm that responds specifically to my presence. Why don’t I throw in some rocket launchers and a minefield. Would that help me win back your trust?” Razer offered exasperated.

Hal let out a chuckle.

“You didn’t lose my trust numb nuts. I have no problem believing you’ll have my back in a scuffle.”

“I’ll keep him under strict observation Hal Jordan” Aya chirped coming into the room.

Razer quickly sat up and straightened himself. Hal giggled seeing the Red Lantern so flustered over Aya. 

“Alright. I’ll leave him in your capable hands then, Aya. And I expect you both back on active duty as soon as possible. Oh and... Razer?”

“Yes?”

“Try and keep your lips to yourself this time, will you?”

Razer’s face contorted into a mask of pure hatred when Hal Jordan spoke those words to him, and all the human could do was jog out laughing. The anger was replaced with a tentative smile when he looked in Aya’s direction, who was studying him quietly. 

Razer felt lighter and more relaxed than he had in years. He’d somehow managed to escape this entire ordeal with his dignity intact and his heart in one piece. Furthermore, he wouldn’t have to hide his feelings anymore, and who knows what pleasures and delights were available for him in the future, with Aya by his side.

“Did all of that actually happen?” he asked dreamily.

Aya’s smile disappeared and was replaced with a puzzled look.

“I don’t understand the query. Did _what_ actually happen?” she asked. 

_Uh-oh..._

“You and me... in my dream?” Razer followed up suddenly worried.

“What exactly occurred in this dream and why is it relevant?”

>>>


	4. Chapter 4

So maybe things weren’t looking up for Razer as he thought. He slumped down in his bed and threw the cover over himself. He dreamed it up. He dreamed it all up. 

“Keep your sanity, keep your dignity and keep the girl? Stupid Razer. Stupid idiotic imbecile” he scolded himself in his mind.

This was undoubtedly the worst joke the universe could have played on him, having to go back to pretending that he cared for Aya only as a friend after everything that happened. 

Just as he was thinking that miserable thought, he felt Aya grab hold of his hand. He threw the cover away and looked up to see her smiling, rather mischievously.

“You’re just... messing with me?” he asked tentatively.

“Yes” she answered smirking. 

Razer let out a huge breath in relief and then glared at Aya from underneath his eyebrows.

“Evil”, he muttered.

“Hilarious”, she countered, still smirking.

Razer looked down at their intertwined hand and squeezed back gently. They sat in silence until he finally spoke.

“So we’re really going to do this?”

“Define this.”

“Stop it... You know what I’m talking about.”

“I was under the impression we have already commenced doing this”

“Yes, but... It’s going to get really complicated”

“I have no aversion towards.‘complicated’. I’m a computer, remember?”

>>>

“What do you do when you’re here?” Razer asked in one of the many dreams he had in the following weeks.

Aya stopped from peppering kisses across his collarbone and came face to face with him. Her naked body was straddling him, while he, as usual, maintained at least some form of decency in the sense of always keeping his pants on. 

“I must not be very proficient at sexual expression if you need to ask me that” Aya joked. 

“No, I don’t mean it like that. I mean, when you’re here... what happens to the ship. What happens to your physical form?”

Aya let her hands travel across his chest, paying particular attention to his nipples which she teased with circular movements, eliciting a groan.

“Right now for example, Hal Jordan, Kilowog and I are assisting in the Thanagarian peace talks”. 

“You mean, _right now_ right now?”

Aya bent down to kiss his neck. 

“Yes” she whispered against his skin.

“So while you’re here with me, you’re still performing tasks in the real world” he pressed on.

“Affirmative” she continued nuzzling his neck, letting her hands roam over his arms and his shoulders.

“How can you do that?”

She stopped her ministrations and came face to face with him.

“One, multitasking is well within my range of abilities. Second, this may shock you but I do not sleep, I hardly ever need to recharge. And third, why is this such an important issue for you?”

Razer didn’t know how to answer that without sounding like a brat. He already could hardly believe his fortune and of course he understood Aya had other duties to perform and was more than able of dividing and prioritizing her attention. it was one of the great benefits of this arrangement. They could be together and nobody would ever walk in on them uninvited. It still bothered him though.

Instead of explaining all that, he chose to wrap his arms around her and roll over, taking her with him, so that now he was on top. Aya squealed in delight at the sudden change of position, and circled his neck with her arms.

“Maybe I’m not satisfied with anything less than your full undivided attention” Razer said hotly.

“My central processing unit has a oscillation rate 132 times faster than the combined output of your 85 million neurons” Aya stated matter o factly.

“I think I already knew you’re smarter than me.”

“The point is... just a fraction of my attention is sufficient. It is not my fault your organic brains can not compartmentalize their energy in order to perform simultaneous tasks with the same efficiency.”

Razer pulled back like he had been slapped.

“Oh really?” he asked defiantly.

He smacked his lips sensing a challenge coming on. Aya was just looking at him innocently, seemingly unaware of how condescending she sounded. _Seemingly._

“Let’s see if we can break that concentration”

“What do you mea...”

Aya was silenced with a frantic kiss. Razer pressed down with his lower body, Aya being forced to spread her legs. Her body jerked at the sudden pressure in some pretty interesting spots, being unprepared for that kind of sensation. Razer had insisted on taking things slow so he avoided touching her _there_... but this time, it was personal. He would not play second fiddle to a Thanagarian peace talk!

He broke the kiss and looked in her eyes, looking for signs of fear or doubt. Nope, no such sensation. Only pure desire. That’s good, he wanted to prove a point, but he didn’t have to be a brute about it. So he proceeded to kiss, lick and nibble his way down her body, all the way down to her breasts. Her perfect breasts with perfect dark green nipples which behaved accordingly when treated the way a perfect set of nipples should be treated. With tender loving care. Aya whimpered when he placed his mouth on the sensitive cluster of sensors, arching her back to increase the sensation.

Normally, this would be where Razer stopped, but this time he had other plans. Aya froze when she felt him place kisses on her stomach, his fingers gently grazing her inner thighs. _This was new..._

“Razer?”

“Shhhh” he cooed nibbling on her right hip.

“I do not know what you are try...”

Talking suddenly became redundant when she felt it for the first time. A pulsar, a pin-hole, an energy anomaly of some kind, around her and insider her, spreading its warm tendrils all throughout her body. Unsure what to do, lacking the natural instincts of an organic female, she raised her hips trying to get closer to the source of the heat. And that source was Razer’s mouth. He smirked against her thigh. 

_"Where’s your precious oscillation rate now?_ "he thought, circling her clit with his tongue. 

Aya squirmed and moaned, unprepared for this assault of her sensors, unsure of how she should be responding. Razer pushed her back down and spread her legs wider, pushed further, increased the rhythm. Aya tried to keep still, but every flick of his tongue sent shockwaves through her body. Moisture, suction and repetitive motion, that’s all it took to make her systems crash, to reduce her impressive processing power to a completely useless virtual simulation of a female thrashing about. 

The great navigational computer that could calculate jumps across galaxies, was incapable of thinking beyond the 5 centimeter perimeter where Razer’s efforts coagulated to bring her to the brink.

This was slightly humiliating she thought to herself. 

Razer suckled hard on her clit, and she felt her insides tense up for a second. She only had time to wonder disappointed if it was over, before something exploded insider her, bombarding her with pleasure. She crashed back down on the mattress, riding the electromagnetic wave that was her first orgasm. 

Razer sat beside her, sideways, head resting on his arm, hand across her stomach, enjoying the sight of Aya in post-coital bliss. She eventually opened her eyes and smiled up at him.

“You vibrated” Razer said.

“What?” Aya asked dazed.

“When you... climax. You vibrate. Did you know that?”

“Is it a problem? I can change that...”

“No, don’t! he replied quickly. It may have some interesting practical applications. How are the peace talks going by the way?”

Aya groaned. 

“Let’s just say that if we want to maintain the secrecy of this relationship... We better work out a schedule for this type of activities.”

>>>

“Look, I know the Thanagarians are a nasty bunch, but it’s not like they are immune to logic or anything” Hal Jordan explained to Kilowog and Aya, as they were walking to the conference chamber. The Thanagarian emissaries had arrived on Oa a short while ago and were expecting them.

“If this class warfare business doesn’t stop, Thanagar will stop receiving Green Lantern aid. And as nasty as they are, Thanagarians know better than to piss off the Guardians. We just need to get the Downsiders and the Thanagarian elite to sit down and talk to each other. Understood?”

“I understand that Jordan, but it’s not like you can just sit down and talk with the people that have enslaved you for centuries. If we...” 

Kilowog stopped midsentence. He and Hal Jordan both looked at Aya, who was trailing behind them.

“What is the problem” Aya asked neutrally.

Hal and Kilowog looked at each other awkwardly and then back at Aya.

“Did you just... did you just _moan_?” Hal asked, slightly embarrassed.

Aya cocked her head, showing her confusion. 

“Moan? I do not moan Hal Jordan.” 

“Hm.. yeah. Sorry, must’ve been my imagination”

“Hal, I heard it too” Kilowog added.

“Okey, it must’ve been _our_ imagination. Now, as I was saying...”

Again Hal stopped and looked at Aya.

“Ok Aya, you did it again.”

“And it was louder...” Kilowog added blushing.

“Hm. There must be some problem with my vocal processor.”

“Well, can you fix it? We’re supposed to participate in a peace conference, not shoot a porn movie.”

“What is a...” Kilowog and Aya began asking.

“NEVERMIND. Aya, maybe you can skip this one.”

The android nodded in understanding and hovered off the ground.

“I’ll be at the Interceptor if you need me.”

Aya flied away. Kilowog and Hal were left dumbfounded in the hallway.

“What is with that girl?” Hal wondered aloud.

>>>

Aya tried to reach the Interceptor, but found her flight pattern to be unstable. She couldn’t focus on the trajectory and bumped into several lanterns along the way. She eventually decided to take refuge on a balcony, supporting herself on the railing. 

Her perception of reality was all over the place, shifting from being in her physical form to being with Razer. And that is where her processing power was rushing to, even though a ration of it was supposed to be preserved for her daily routine and her scheduled tasks. That all seemed irrelevant now, in the face of this new influx of delicious and enticing information. Her knees wobbled and she heard herself moan this time. The orgasm enveloped her entire electronic nervous system.

“Aya?” 

She froze. Suddenly in dawned on her that the balcony she was one belonged to the Oan hospital. So that explained why Soranik Natu had walked up to her concerned. But what would be the apropriate reaction? Ah yes, turn around. 

Soranik Natu was looking at her concerned. 

“I heard you... Uhm... Are you alright?”

“I am fine, Soranik Natu. No need to concern yourself”

“Are you sure because...”

“Is there no privacy left on this entire planet!?” Aya erupted and stomped away leaving Soranik Natu looking very confused.

Her attention was drawn to the railing that Aya had been holding. It was compressed and mangled, with two huge indentations, in the form of handprints, like somebody had squeezed the living daylights out of it. Soranik looked at Aya’s retreating form and then back at the tortured railing. 

“Last time I try to ask the android if she’s alright” Soranik grumbled.

>>>

Razer’s eyelids grew heavy and he was happily awaiting the pleasant embrace of sleep and all that it would offer him. Until somebody came banging on his door. Quite rudely I might add.

“Wake up, Sleepy Head!” Hal’s voice flooded Razer’s quarters.

“Go away Jordan!” Razer shouted back and threw his blanket over his head.

A thin tendril of green energy pushed it’s way through the closed panels of the entry in his room. It made it’s way through the gloomy darkness, glowing bright. It manifested into a huge index finger that started poking Razer in the ribs. The Red Lantern woke up furiously and got up to answer the door.

“WHAT!?”

“Rise and shine poozer!” Kilowog greeted him from behind Hal Jordan.

“Nice boxers” Hal remarked.

Razer quickly looked down and realised that he was in fact only wearing underwear. Slightly embarrassed he lashed out at the two Green Lanterns in front of him.

“What do you want?”

“It’s boys night out. Come on, Gardner has the jello shots all lined up” Hal explained.

“I’m not interested in your juvenile human male-bonding rituals” Razer declined.

“You got anything better to do?” Hal asked peeking inside his room.

“Sleep for instance. Or watching paint dry.”

“Oh come on. You’re always sleeping! For the last couple of weeks I’ve barely caught you awake. I’m half afraid you got narcolepsy” Hal whined.

“Leave the kid alone, Jordan. He wants his beauty sleep, and with that face, he needs plenty of it” Kilowog joked.

Razer glared at the bolovaxian.

“Unlike you, who would need a beauty-coma... For a few years... eons even!” Razer tried to quip back.

Hal and Kilowog just stared awkwardly at each other, not really getting the joke.

“You know what I mean” Razer spat and made a move to close the doors.

“Razer, come on. We got darts and everything. Don’t you long for the opportunity to throw a pointy object in my direction?” Hal offered.

“Some other time, Jordan”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, now will you please let me get some rest?”

“Fine, go back to sleep and dream of bombs and lasers and protecting the universe from the unclean... or whatever it is you dream of”

Razer smirked to himself.

“Come on Kilowog. Let’s try and get Tomar-Re to join us. That guy is hilarious when he’s drunk” Hal said and then he and his friend wandered off.

Razer thanked his lucky stars that it had been so easy to get rid of the dynamic duo. He hopped back in bed when the proximity sensor let him know somebody else was standing at his doorstep.

“I told you, I’m not interested...” Razer shouted getting to the doorway but stopped cold when the doors slid open to reveal Aya.

She looked up surprised.

“Aya! Sorry... I... Hal was just here being... Hal. I was... just about to go to sleep” he said and smiled timidly.

“I see. May I enter?”

“Of course” Razer said stepping aside and letting her come in. 

Aya turned around as the doors slid shut once again. 

“I wish to demonstrate a hypothesis. Is it alright if I join you in your sleep stasis?”

“I guess so. Wait... I want to do something first.”

He stepped closer to her and picked her up, holding her lithe body in his arms.

“Is this a romantic gesture?” Aya asked while being carried to bed.

“Yes.”

“Is romance defined by redundancy? Because I could have easily transported myself to your bed.”

“You can’t define romance. It is the outward manifestation of love. And since you can’t define love...”

“You can not?” Aya asked in earnest after Razer gingerly sat her down on the bed.

“No, despite what some bad poets might like you to believe.”

She remained silent after that, stirred by something he had said. He sat down next to her unsure what exactly she was planning.

“You may proceed to fall asleep now” she finally said. 

Her eyes blinked in sequence a couple of times, signaling that the mental projector had been activated. Razer slid down and made himself comfortable. He tugged gently at her arm and got her to lie down, resting her head on his chest. 

It didn’t feel as natural as it usually did in his dreams, but it was intimacy all the same. With the comforting hum of her body radiating through him, he soon fell asleep.

After a few minutes in the darkness his consciousness re materialized in the middle of what could only be described as a galaxy of computer code. It reminded him of the time he saw Aya’s true form but this time on a much larger scale, the code stretching as far as his eyes could see. Characters linked together flowed from column to column over his head. The air crackled with electricity and made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

The vortex of information was quite dizzying, but he felt somebody grab his hand. Aya pulled him upwards, above the ocean of cascading terabytes. 

“What is this?” Razer asked.

“A visual representation of my central nervous system.”

“And we are here because..."

“It only seems fair. I’ve seen your soul. But this is not actually what I wanted you to see... Come.”

Aya grabbed his hand and tugged him along to the outer reaches of the intricate display beneath them. They stopped above an empty space, where lines of code cut off and where no information was exchanged. Razer remarked the absence of activity in the middle of a cluster of pictorial programming. 

“What is this?" he asked slightly concerned.

“This is you” she replied.

“ME!? I am...a hole in your consciousness?"

Aya braced herself, attempting to choose her words as carefully as possible. 

“I am a navigational computer. That is the purpose that I was created for. To solve equations, calculate odds of probability, resolve paradoxes, navigate through quantic singularities. I am required to think 10 activities ahead, otherwise the Interceptor will land in the middle of a supernova. It may seem like I have free will but only because I’m very practiced at creating the illusion of it. In reality I know every outcome of every decision that I can or can’t make.”

“What does that have to do with me?”

“When it comes to you specifically... when I try to project what would happen if you... did not exist, or stopped existing, or left... I can not process that. No problem solving algorithm and no amount of computational intelligence can... make me accept that state of being. A universe without you is a statistical impossibility”.

Aya remained silent and carefully observed Razer’s expression. He was trying to understand where all this was going. She came closer and took his hands into hers.

“I do not know what it is that you are waiting for. I do not know what feelings I am supposed to have or that you expect me to have but you yourself said that you cannot define love. This is my definition. I cannot experience emotions like you. All I have are numbers and the numbers do not lie. The universe does not make sense without you so that must mean that I love you”.

Razer wondered if this was what bliss felt like. His heart filled with joy while his head was clearer than it had ever been. She’d seen him at his best and at his worst and somehow calculated that he was still worth loving.

He embraced her and kissed her with such passion that if she required oxygen she’d be left completely breathless. But this wasn’t just any other female. It was Aya. His Aya. That just seconds before professed her love for him, the second miracle he had witnessed in his life, both of them pertaining to her.

Aya went along for the ride in a complete surrender. Her hand moved up and held the back of his head as their mouths moved over each other, brushing, sucking, and tickling, tongues winding, stroking and pushing, teeth nibbling. He grabbed her middle and raised her slightly, Aya circling her legs around his waist. 

Razer was consumed with one thought: “Show her! Show her how much you love her” because he was certain he wouldn’t be as eloquent as she had been if he actually had to use words to express his feelings. But he could let his body do the talking for him and hopefully she would understand perfectly.

Razer’s lust slowly took control of the dream-scape and the world of computation and mathematics dissolved and morphed into the familiar setting of his room on Oa, because that’s pretty much all he could come up with on the spot.

Razer staggered towards his bed and crashed down with Aya on top of him. 

Brushing at his face, sweeping her fingers along the markings on his cheek, over his neck and around his ear and through his hair, Aya gazed at him. She knew he found her beautiful, before any of this started. All the little signals his body would send out, betraying his feelings. Razer had stated that he didn’t want her to analyse his vital signs, but what she never said is that he was the only one that elicited that kind of behavior. Before even being conscious of doing it, she would count his heartbeats and calculate the symmetry of the sharp angles of his face. All the numbers and algorithms that made up this individual and that she’d committed to memory. 

Is that what attraction was?

“What is it?” Razer asked noticing her descent into contemplation.

“I was just thinking... how beautiful you are”

Razer rolled his eyes.

“You already got me in bed Aya, you don’t need to butter me up”

Aya squinted her eyes and poked him in the ribs.

“Ow... not again. What is it with Green Lanterns and your fascination with rib poking!”

Aya just took that as motivation to repeat the action, on both sides this time. Razer winced and writhed and when he felt like he might burst out laughing and thereby completely destroy his tough guy image he grabbed her wrists and rolled over, taking her with him. He took Aya’s chin in his hand and met her mouth with all of the craving and ache and love that had been building up inside him since the day he met her. Aya kissed him back, arching her chest up, her fingers digging into his muscled back. 

Razer sipped and licked and bit kisses across Aya’s body, collecting shivers and whimpers along the way. He paused to pay special attention to her nipples, at first kissing them gently and then circling his tongue around them. Without notice, his hand travelled down between them. He gently spread her legs apart, his thumb circling around the clitoris, matching the motion of his mouth. Aya’s hips jerked and her body twitched uncontrollably under the assault of both his hand and his mouth. She clutched his head, running her frantic hands through his hair. 

Razer moved from one nipple to the other, all the while coordinating his movements. He remarked with pleasure that Aya began moaning louder, clutching desperately at him, her moans sometimes devolving into a series of electronic sounds. She gripped his shoulders tightly. The energy anomaly was back, throwing her mental processes into disarray. The entirety of the universe reduced to the heat spreading inside her and the buildup of tension at the base of her spine. Even that tiny bit of awareness exploded when she felt Razer use his finger to penetrate her. She arched her even higher and bucked her hips furiously, just as Razer was hungrily suckling her right nipple. 

A peculiar need to get him as close to her as possible prompted her to clutch his head and pull him up for a desperate kiss. Two fingers were now sliding in and out of her, they pressed and rubbed hard at a spot that made Aya whimper and forget what she was, forget that she wasn’t supposed to experience these sensations, forget that she wasn’t really alive, that she was a thing that was built and not born. 

With their foreheads pressed together, Aya pleaded silently with her eyes for Razer to give in to what his own body needed, as evidenced by his own erection. She reached out and brushed her fingers along the tip of his penis, observing his eyes squeeze shut at the sensation. She carefully positioned the swollen member at her entrance, determination clear in her eyes, that this time he wasn’t going to make her orgasm with his mouth, his fingers, anything less than his entire being. Razer marveled at her sudden boldness and figured that it wasn’t nice to keep a lady waiting. And, despite everything, she _was_ a lady. 

Spreading her legs even farther, he entered her for the first time... and he saw stars.

He literally saw stars, and galaxies, and nebulas and everything that was bright and colorful and dynamic in the universe. 

His head fell down, hiding itself in the crook of her neck as beams of pleasure as hot as lasers shot forward through his body. They stayed that way for a minute. Just holding each other tightly, joined together, burning skin pressed against cool green light, trembling against one another, needing to be even closer.

Finally, Aya turned her head and pressing her mouth to Razer’s face whispered:

“Razer... let me show you what we can do.”

Even though this was Aya’s first time to perform actual intercourse, she wasn’t going to be a passive participant, she wasn’t just going to accept the build-up and the release of energy. She was going to show Razer just what it felt like to be her, the experience of the universe through her non-organic eyes.

Razer didn’t exactly know what to expect when it came to being inside Aya, but he certainly wasn’t expecting this. He knew somewhere in the back of his mind his hips just began to flex and thrust and tension was building in the lower part of his spine, but at the same time he just landed inside a nebula, and a comet just flew right past him, and he passed right through that gas giant’s outer rings. Lanterns had the possibility of spaceflight, but not like this, not with neutrinos bombarding you and with the universe sharing its sub-atomic secrets with you. 

And throughout all of this Aya was right there with him, staring at him lovingly.

"You were wrong..." he said, somehow finding the resources to form words, with his mind torn between exploring the universe and satisfying the body's urges.

Aya looked up in his eyes, confused.

"We are beautiful. Together" 

Aya smiled and shot straight up to kiss him hard and deep, pushing hard up against the kiss, urging Razer back and back until suddenly their positions were switched and Aya was once more the one on top, delighted in her new freedom to move. Razer guided her hips, helping them pick up speed. Her hands roamed over his chest and shoulders, fingers curling and nails leaving faint, pink marks in their wake.

Razer marveled at her transformation: head thrown back, lips partly open to let in air she didn't need, hips thrusting desperately against his own body, searching for that wave of energy that would pulverize their consciousness and reduce their brains to goo.

He had a perfect line of sight to his member gliding in and out, as she thrust her hips against this body and once again he was astounded. 

Not that if felt so good but because it happened at all. This wasn't supposed to happen, but thank the stars it did.

One of the Lantern's hands found Aya's clitoris and started stimulating it to match the rhythm of her hips. Soon, Aya was bucking forward into the hand stroking her and then back into the pulsating member thrusting inside of her, her spine arched and her head tilted forward onto Razer's shoulder.

She looked deep in his eyes wanting to take him on one last trip before she came. Just as her inner muscles clamped down and pleasure flooded into him, Razer's consciousness jumped into hyperspace and he wasn't alone. Their minds were pulverized into a billion little particles, they traveled at the speed of light, bombarded with cosmic radiation, dodging black matter, and then reformed somewhere on the other side of the galaxy. 

When they came out of it, his voice was hoarse, so he might've screamed, but he wasn't sure. Aya was a pile of warm and tingling goo on top of him. 

"I had an endoskeleton. I do not think I have it any more" she whispered lazily.

Razer smirked and started to rub her lower back. 

"Is it always going to be like that?" he asked.

"There is a 67.82% chance that it is going to be even better" she replied with a glint in her eyes.

"You just made that number up, didn't you?"

"Maybe..."

"Well... I'll believe you but only if you think my poor organic brain can take it." 

His remark was meant only as a joke, she knew that much, but she still had the urge to analyze every axiological statement to verify its validity. His brain was the result of millennia of evolution, allowing him to be analytical and frustratingly unpredictable at the same time. His instincts, his memories, his emotions.. they all called that spongy organic tissue their home. So there was absolutely nothing poor about it. 

Of course she couldn't tell him that...

"Practice makes perfect" she finally said.


End file.
